The world's largest scientific society, American Chemical Society (ACS), US, has announced the launch of its new peer-reviewed publication, ACS Chemical Biology, a global forum for biologists and chemists working jointly to understand cellular processes. Editor-in-chief Laura L. Kiessling, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and MacArthur Foundation Fellow at the University of Wisconsin will lead 'ACS Chemical Biology'.

The new journal provides coverage on peer-reviewed research findings, latest viewpoints, commentaries and highlights from the field to promote communication and collaboration among researchers across a range of sub disciplines in biology and chemistry.

The journal, available online at www.acschemicalbiology.org, offers interactive community features updated on a weekly basis, and is open to all scientists. These include "Ask the Expert," where scientific experts handle questions to offer readers new insights and perspectives, and a "Wiki" discussion forum, designed to encourage communication between chemical biology community members.

Abstract and indexing database Scopus, part of STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the launch of the Citation Tracker, a new feature that allows subscribing researchers to easily evaluate research using citation data. The feature was developed in response to users' requirement to deviate from pre-defined metrics and analyse a topic at the individual author or article level.

Scopus Citation Tracker provides a more easy and efficient way for researchers and librarians to check and track citation data to gather knowledge on articles, authors, their own published work and research trends. It is projected as the only product to give an instant overview of citation data for any set of articles over a date range selected by the user.

Following intensive development with librarians and researchers, the Scopus Citation Tracker provides quick intelligence on the influence of a suite of articles, an author or group of authors over time. This, in turn, allows users to spot trends quickly. They can also control the specific articles and date ranges they want to evaluate and easily navigate through the cited and citing literature using a visual table of citations broken down by article and chronology.

The new citation tool enables users to quickly and easily spot the most highly cited authors in a field; find and track hot topics in specific subject areas; check the latest citation data on specific authors and articles; and track and evaluate research trends.

A group of publishers, learned societies and librarians has launched an initiative using the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) technology to support a 'large dark archive'. The archive is projected to serve as a reliable repository for published scholarly content.

The initiative, Controlled LOCKSS (CLOCKSS), assures the research community that access to journal content will not be obstructed by any calamity that prevents the delivery of content. The collaborative initiative addresses the uncertainty that librarians have faced in the digital environment. The initial two-year pilot will include at least five research libraries and several commercial and society publishers. During this period, libraries and publishers will continue to work closely to gather and analyse data and develop a proposal for a complete archiving model.

CLOCKSS content or the 'orphaned content' will become available only after a 'trigger' event, such as the non-availability of material from the publisher. In such cases, a joint advisory board will verify if the content is orphaned and if it should be made publicly available. The board ensures that content is controlled but no one sector or person has authority over the orphaned digital material. The CLOCKSS project offers an alternative solution to archiving and provides additional features to the LOCKSS system. In CLOCKSS, participating libraries will archive both subscribed and non-subscribed journals with the objective of archiving all journals of participating publishers.

As part of a longer-term strategy to permanently preserve published work, CLOCKSS will report the findings to the wider community and begin the dialogue about a global infrastructure to ensure preservation of all past, present and future scholarly content.

Multilingual technologies provider Teragram, UK, has announced that business information provider Reed Business Information (RBI), US, has selected the company to provide Categorisation and Entities Extraction technologies. Teragram technology provides more accurate and immediate information retrieval and presentation across RBI's over 900 online media properties.

The Teragram Categorisation and Entities Extraction technologies address RBI's need to present a multitude of news topics simultaneously and comprehensibly to a wide range of rapidly changing markets. Teragram provides immediate, advanced classification of news articles, enabling more accurate and quick access to specific topics that compliment the interest of a given user. This allows RBI to offer relevant content not only from within the searched property, but across all its online publications.

Founded in 1997, Teragram Corporation serves customers across the publishing, telecommunications, pharmaceutical and financial industries. It helps them execute more efficient searches and better organise information in over 30 languages, thereby enabling them to make better decisions and reach new markets.

Search and filter technology developer Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), Norway, and software firm Saxotech, Denmark, have announced an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) partnership. The deal is projected to bring improved search features to Saxotech's web publishing application platform for online media sites and other products.

Saxotech, which implements software exclusively for the publishing industry, will integrate FAST InStream, an enterprise-class search solution, with Saxotech Online, its web publishing platform that enables the rapid flow of content from news sources to dynamic, multimedia web sites. Via this integration, Saxotech's customers can realise real-time indexing of content from multiple sources - a valuable service to new media sites that typically produce hundreds of new articles and online classified advertisements per day.

General availability of the initial FAST-integrated, search technologies will be with the mid-2006 release of Saxotech Online.

Technology provider for publishing industries Ingenta, UK, has announced the latest developments in its subscription agent partnership program. The company aims to simplify activation of online subscriptions for its library customers through this program.

The program, designed to function for both smaller agents and major players, eliminates the need for publishers to forward the access and authentication data received from agents, and endorsed by 98 percent of Ingenta's more than 280 publisher customers. In this program contributing agents make use of the company's institutional customer identifiers (CIDs) and include these within the subscription files supplied to Ingenta. Ingenta has assigned CIDs to more than 20,000 institutions. Nearly all of these registered libraries buy their subscriptions via one or more agents, and thus benefit from Ingenta's enterprise in this sector.